Citizen Leopard Superbeat 10 Automatic question

[trilo]

Hi

I picked up this Citizen Leopard recently. Judging from the dial it was 26j manual wind. Not too many pictures and I kind of took a risk with it. It was also listed with a note "starts when shaken", but seller did not outright mention that it would work. So I assume the original seller thought it was a manual wind as well. Anyway I expected it not to work. My intention was to buy a manual wind and try to get it running as I don't have any experience with automatics yet.

It arrived today and I didn't expect too much. To my surprise it wound up and the next thing  I realized that there was no limit. Then I realized that it might be automatic and sure enough it was.

I opened it up and first I thought it must be wrong rotor as dial said 26j and rotor indicated 28j and thus being a franken piece. Then I realized that it should read automatic on the dial and from that I figured that dial didn't match the movement. I think the dial and the case belong together and the movement is later addition.

Movement seems to be a Citzen 7430 and if it is legit, it runs at 36k. The question is ofc why would some one replace inferior movement with a better one.

My feeling is that it's all right when comparing it with some other pictures. What would you say:

Does the movement look original (do I need to dig deeper to confirm this)?

[Adrian-VTA]

Quite likely what happened is the last guy in there opened the watch, put a screwdriver through the balance, said "shit" then had to find a replacement movement.

[rossr]

Hi, that is a pretty early Leopard model. These first generation pieces came out in 1969, and featured the big crown at 3 - which I really like. The big crown assists with the manual winding, though I generally rely on the automatic function, as the manual winding can be a bit stiff. Yours looks to have a replacement crown, and as you have speculated, a replacement movement - a hotted up Leopard. It may have been a matter of convenience - having a 28 jewel movement available to simply drop in. Nice watch.

[trilo]

Mar 23, 2021 17:46:31 GMT -8 Adrian-VTA said:

Quite likely what happened is the last guy in there opened the watch, put a screwdriver through the balance, said "shit" then had to find a replacement movement.

Yeah, marks on the rotor plate would definetly indicate something like that...

[small]

I didn't see a movement number on your example? Does it have 28 jewels like the rotor say or is it maybe just a replacement rotor. I have seen several Seiko 7000x movements with swapped out rotors, on "frank'n" pieces... the rotors work just the same. Do you have a timegrapher to actually see if it is beating aa 36k 

Very nice looking watch regardless...Clean looking movement to boot.

[trilo]

Second photo from the top. It's faintly stamped on the on the movement plate 7430. Took a while for me to find it. Other examples are stamped like that aswell. I can provide a better photo later.

According to sweephand's movement table 7430 was 28j 36k automatic day/date. Citizen Highnes was also produced with 7430 movement, but it was date only and not certified. So according to that it's a rather nice movement...

One would have expected them to stamp the number more boldly as this was their Officially Certified Chronometer automatic which supposedly was made to compete with swiss watches and Seiko Hi-Beat. 7230 is another variant of this and runs at lower bph.

Any comment on that rotor wear? Is it what you would expect to see on vintage autos? I know it happens and I have seen it beofre, I just don't know how common it is and what people think about it.
And yes, judging by the rotor wear, it might have been cleaned at some point.

[Fergus]

Bridge wear is common on vintage Seiko due to the oscillating weight bearing 'flop' with age.

[trilo]

Mar 24, 2021 13:10:00 GMT -8 small said:

I didn't see a movement number on your example? Does it have 28 jewels like the rotor say or is it maybe just a replacement rotor. I have seen several Seiko 7000x movements with swapped out rotors, on "frank'n" pieces... the rotors work just the same. Do you have a timegrapher to actually see if it is beating aa 36k 

Very nice looking watch regardless...Clean looking movement to boot.

Don't own a proper timegrapher yet, but managed to measure bph with a smartphone and sure enough it ticks at 36k

And apparently not all Leopards (especially 26j models) seem to have Automatic written on the dial but is to be found from the case back instead like seen in the photos above.

So all in all seems like the scenario was like Adrian and rossr mentioned. Original automatic busted and it was replaced with a better one. That rotor with 28j written on it defintely belongs to 7430 movement.

Could this be the case where some one sent their watch back to Citizen and it came back with improved guts and put in a safe after that


EDIT: Just found from Sweephand's movement table that Leopard superbeat 8 was the only Leopard with 26j and it was automatic aswell (Movement 7600). So it's not too far fetched to replace it with Leopard Superbeat 10!

So to summarize at this point:

- Case and dial belong to a Leopard 26j Superbeat 8 (7600).
- Movement is replaced with a Leopard Superbeat 10 Officially Certified day/date version of 7430.
- Movement is 36k and is in nice condition.

[rossr]

I have a few of these, but none of the really early ‘69 models. I might have to look into that.....

[trilo]

Mar 25, 2021 2:42:08 GMT -8 rossr said:

I have a few of these, but none of the really early ‘69 models. I might have to look into that.....

Yeah. That was the only question mark on this case. Sweephand mentions both movements starting from year 1970.

Caseback reads 4-720041 Y and dial 6-720064 Y so think they really do go together (-41 being case code and -56 dial code). Caseback seems to be also in quite a good condition.

[rossr]

I've seen quite a number of the 1969 models. I just want to rectify my deficiency in that division to the tune of at least one.

[trilo]

Mar 25, 2021 3:36:45 GMT -8 rossr said:

I've seen quite a number of the 1969 models. I just want to rectify my deficiency in that division to the tune of at least one.

I just noticed that the dial doesn't read Superbeat 8. Has anyone seen any superbeats with a dial that doesn't read "Superbeat 8"?

[rossr]

Mar 27, 2021 21:39:19 GMT -8 trilo said:

Mar 25, 2021 3:36:45 GMT -8 rossr said:

I've seen quite a number of the 1969 models. I just want to rectify my deficiency in that division to the tune of at least one.

I just noticed that the dial doesn't read Superbeat 8. Has anyone seen any superbeats with a dial that doesn't read "Superbeat 8"?

A common variation. Check out Sweephand's (Stephen's) posts on his web site about the various models.

[trilo]

Gotcha. I also noticed that the catalogue photo has Leopard models which only have Leopard and 26j written on the dial.